bodyache
by LookAtMyShoes
Summary: Lexa will be a vessel for Clarke's anguish even if it tears her apart. - Oneshot.


I haven't posted on this account in AGES, but I happened to remember the password after I wrote this earlier and figured if I'm posting it to ao3, may as well post it here. This is essentially a "missing scenes" fic combined with a slightly AU fic in which little circumstances here and there are different, such as where a certain character is located during a specific event, etc. I just really wanted to explore the angst and tension between Clarke and Lexa in the recently aired episodes, tbh, because they hurt me.

bodyache

The lip of the knife presses a steely bite into her neck and her throat bobs once as she swallows the vile taste in her mouth. Her hooded eyes watch Clarke, not pleading or begging for any shred of mercy. She watches and waits because she knows what she deserves and if the hatred she has brewed for herself these past three months has taught her anything, it's that she knows quite helplessly how she will submit to any act that will soothe the deep ache in Clarke. The ache that she built there, that she constructed at the base of Clarke's diaphragm and suffocated her lungs with, the one she made too big for even Clarke to hold up without the anger and blame turning in on herself.

Lexa hates herself for what a hypocrite she's become, living by the needs of others above her own for as long as she has carried the heavy weight of Heda on her shoulders, because at this moment her death is not in the best interest of her people – it would spur on a chaos that's already stirring beneath her feet – but she will foolishly give Clarke anything to help her heal.

She feels her heart give a particularly harsh, sharp pump at the unconcealed anguish in Clarke's blue, blue eyes the color of the sky she fell from and the words "I'm sorry" unexpectedly push past her lips not as a means to garner enough pity for Clarke to spare her, but to get the repulsive taste out of her mouth and to dry the tears brimming in Clarke's pained eyes. It does neither and Clarke's beautiful face twists, conflicted and hurt as she pulls away with a sob she tries in vain to swallow, dropping the knife to the floor. Lexa feels a wave of self-loathing wash over her like thick, inky tar and it weighs so heavily it holds her where she stands. She watches the knife clamber to the ground until it lies still and she thinks maybe she was begging Clarke for a mercy that won't be granted and that she was wrong – that she doesn't deserve to have her throat ripped open because it would end this pain and she owes Clarke the decency to live with what she's done.

Death is not something Lexa is afraid of and she deserves to be crushed beneath the weight of a fear that will ruin her.

Her chin quivers once, perhaps twice, and quietly she admits, openly and disgusted with herself,

"I never meant to turn you into this."

Clarke turns, watches her with harsh, red-rimmed eyes that dare Lexa to keep speaking, wordlessly challenges her to try and keep spilling enough regret from her parted mouth to fill the wounds that throb within Clarke as though they are exposed and overworked beating hearts.

Lexa knows she cannot fold Clarke's ribcage back together and so she says no more other than to assure her she is free to go.

* * *

To Lexa's complete surprise and relief, Clarke agrees to the unity ceremony – to lend Skaikru's open palm to Lexa's coalition and to kneel at Heda's feet.

Lexa takes it for what it is and her hopes don't lift, but she is undeniably overcome with the relief that she will never have to hurt Clarke in the best interest of her people again (she's become tired of that excuse and tired of the old soul she carries that doesn't match the youth of her own face). Clarke is her responsibility now as much as any other citizen under her hand.

She stands straight and stiff while two of her handmaidens tie her formal dress around her waist and braid her hair appropriately for the monumental occasion that awaits her. One of them has just finished dusting the outsides of Lexa's eyes with heavy sweeps of charcoal when the door to her chambers creaks and her eyes snap open, the whites of them stark against the black coal that borders them.

" _Heda_ ," Indra says, touching her right arm to her left shoulder and bowing her head. The two handmaidens step away and stand at either side of Lexa, who watches Indra without any change in demeanor and she takes that as an invitation to continue. "If I may have a moment to talk to you before the summit?"

Her preparations are essentially complete, so she waves off the two women with a single hand and they exit the room with their hands folded in front of them.

"Speak what is on your mind, Indra," Lexa says evenly.

Indra inspects her for a moment and Lexa can easily detect the loyalty Indra communicates in the straight set of her shoulders, the unwavering lock of her gaze, the stiff set of her jaw. She detects something else, though, and is about to probe her further when Indra sighs, sags her warrior's shoulders for a moment, and draws the lines of her face into an expression of concern,

"If I may speak candidly," she requests.

"Proceed," Lexa allows.

"The summit of the 12 clans this evening," Indra begins slowly. "Heda, you are not exactly amending the terms of the treaty with Skaikru, are you?"

Lexa is unsure whether or not Titus has been unfaithful to her or of she is simply that transparent when it comes to the lengths she will extend herself to for Clarke. She suspects the latter – Titus has been nothing but trustworthy to commanders even long before her and Indra knows her well. For a moment Lexa mulls over the question Indra has posed and the discomfort and vulnerability it unveils, but betrays no emotion on her face.

"What makes you suspect otherwise?" she asks.

"You have sought after Wanheda since her famed disappearance. Forgive me, Commander, but I think I know quite well how far you will go to ensure she does not disappear again."

"She is not safe. Out in the open, wandering the wilds like some –" Lexa's frustrations with Clarke's flippant attitude toward her own safety come through in a quiet huff and she steadies herself with a swift breath through her nose. "Queen Nia wants her blood and I will bear every lash that comes my way to stop her."

Indra looks at her in a way that Lexa detests, as though she pities her, and says,

"I don't think there is a need for me to remind you what the Ice Queen took from you the last time you wore your heart so brazenly," she says sadly.

"No, Indra, there is not," Lexa snaps. Her black-bordered eyes widen harshly at Indra's audacity to wield such words. "The Queen's hands will not touch Clarke. For once, this aligns with my own selfish interests and those of my people. If she were to kill Clarke and inherit the power of Wanheda, it would not only give her strength and embolden her, it would symbolize enough for those that are already shifty on their feet to go running to her side. It is the most beneficial move for me to accommodate Skaikru and offer them a seat."

"And of those that will turn on you for that decision alone?"

"Disagreement on this matter will not be tolerated," Lexa says with a heavy suggestion of finality and Indra relents, taking the hint.

"I am loyal to your rule of our people, I stand behind every decision you make. I am your right hand and you are to wield me as you choose," Indra pauses, taking a meaningful step toward Lexa. "I only implore you to be cautious. You are the greatest commander I have witnessed in my time and your loss would be felt far and wide."

"I know what is at stake and I am confident in my actions."

Indra nods.

"That is all I ask."

* * *

Lexa knows the only way she can begin to convince Clarke she is trustworthy is to do so on her knees. Like Clarke is the alter she prays to, begging the heavens for repentance.

It's a position she has not assumed since she answered her calling as Heda and shame quietly burns like ashy, dying coals within her. She knows it's the right and necessary thing to do, though, and when Clarke offers her hand, the burning halts like she's been doused with cold water and fresh air and she feels taller than she ever has once she's back on her feet.

* * *

Later that night, Lexa's boots are still tied up to her shins, her belt buckle still clasped snug between her hips. Her heavy jacket is hung on the back of the chair she stands in front of, shrugged off there between poring over the maps on her table and pacing the room. She still wears a full layer of thin mail that wraps her torso all the way to her wrists where the material gives way to a pair of gloves that only sheath her hands as far as her palms, leaving her weathered fingers exposed. The moon hangs high in the night sky and she faces Clarke as soon as she notices her enter her room and straightens her back.

"Clarke," Lexa says, and she is not as caught off guard as she is concerned. Her eyes give away everything to Clarke. "You could not sleep?"

Given the evening's outcome, she's not surprised, but she's disappointed that she can't grant Clarke a moment of the solace she wishes she could.

Clarke shakes her head and steps further into the room, gets a closer look at what Lexa is stressing over. Lexa has spent her nights here, fingers pressed into her temples, jaw squared, shoulders knotted, driving herself mad in pursuit of a solution to these problems that seem to surface anew at each sunrise.

Clarke keeps her gaze severed from Lexa's and busies her hands with one another, wringing them anxiously.

"All of those people, again," she says somberly. "The Mountain has become a bigger omen of death than me."

Lexa cannot offer much consolation to Clarke – there's no lifting a blame from her shoulders that she is determined to carry.

"Does it ever get easier? The killing? Do you ever stop seeing their faces everywhere you go, on the backs of your eyelids when you try to sleep, when you try to blink?"

Lexa takes a moment to consider her answer.

"I've said this before, but you can't let yourself feel for every lost life. It might sound heartless, but if you want to move forward, you can't. You must come to terms with your choices and reconcile with the effects they have caused. You must prioritize the living."

"How do you do that and keep your sanity? How do you do that and not drown in your own nightmares, Lexa? How do you remain human?"

"It's very human to mourn, to regret, yes. But it does nothing to help the dead and it does nothing to help those that are still alive, does it? It's most effective and courteous to carry the burdens, but only the heaviest so that your people don't have to."

Clarke doesn't look satisfied with that answer and Lexa continues,

"I have been trained as a warrior since I was a child, Clarke. It's not that I don't feel – it's that I've become very skilled in concealing it."

"Is that how you left me at the Mountain without looking back?"

Lexa sighs.

"I suppose it is."

A silence hangs between them heavily.

"When's the last time _you_ slept?" Clarke asks, pulling the conversation out of that pit and glancing up at Lexa – still encased in the day's armor and the day's weariness.

"I don't have time for the luxury of sleep while Nia marches on Polis. Her cooperation with the coalition has always been a hazard at best. She's been anxious to stir a civil war for some time now and I've given her the kindling she needs to burn a pyre from the inside out of this coalition."

"By taking us as the 13th clan," Clarke says slowly, speaking out loud what Lexa is implying.

"This isn't blood on your hands, Clarke," Lexa dismisses quickly. "This is not your burden."

"Is it not Wanheda's head that the Ice Queen wants? The exact cause for all of this in the first place is literally sitting on my shoulders."

"Queen Nia has been eager to overthrow me since long before your appearance. I'm what she wants."

"Handing me over would pacify her, it would –"

Lexa's eyes flash at this.

"She's hungry for more than the blood of Wanheda. As I've said, she's been itching for an uproar among my people for a long time. You've made the game more interesting for her, that's undeniable, but your death would only spur her on. She would not stop at you."

Clarke frowns thoughtfully and Lexa senses that poisonous haze of pity in her eyes.

"I'm just trying to think in terms of the bigger picture here – "

Lexa _always_ thinks in terms of the big picture, in terms of how her actions and decisions will ripple through thousands of people and she can never put her own needs above that. She knows that Clarke knows this.

"Your death would benefit no one," Lexa says in a way that means this path of the conversation has ended.

Clarke obliges her and pivots their discussion again, "You need to sleep. You're not going to do anyone any good stressing and overworking yourself to the point of exhaustion. You probably can't even think straight, you need rest."

It's not said with an overwhelming amount of concern, but rather stated as a fact.

"My mind is as sharp is it ever is."

Clarke groans.

"You're so stubborn that it borders on flat out stupidity sometimes."

"Stupidity does not manifest itself in the form of me doing everything I can to keep my people safe, to keep you safe."

Clarke finds herself at another dead end.

"Would you sleep if I stayed with you tonight?"

Lexa stills for a moment, the expression on her face surprised. Then,

"I do not need to be watched over like a child, Clarke."

"Ugh, make that 'crosses entirely over the border directly into the very pit of stupidity.'"

Lexa tightens her jaw and the muscles in her neck flex.

"I am not –"

"I mean so you don't have to stay up all night worrying and pacing through the floor," Clarke clarifies, exasperated. "So that _you_ can watch over _me_."

Understanding dawns on Lexa's tired face and she allows a silence to linger between them while she thinks.

"There's no need for you to inconvenience yourself to soothe my anxieties. I'm the one who owes you peace."

"Oh my God," Clarke groans. "Okay, I'm staying. I want to stay. I'm pissed at you, don't get me wrong, I am very, _very_ angry with you, but I know for a fact that you being in anything but tiptop shape now of all times is not good for anyone. I can keep that in perspective. If you think denying yourself what you want is any compensation for what you've done, it's not."

Lexa hesitates, but nods. She has no quarrel with any of that – Clarke's words are fair, if sharp.

"I've got some more things I need to look over, but make yourself comfortable," she gestures to the bed.

"Oh, no, you don't," Clarke says. "Knowing you, you'll sleep on that freaking chair or the floor or not at all. If I'm going to sleep, so are you. Those are still going to be sitting there in the morning for you to stare at all day if you want."

Lexa turns and leans her weight against the edge of the table with a sigh, her elbows resting in her opposing palms. She studies Clarke's face for a moment, tries to add all of Clarke's recent actions and words together into a cohesive formula that makes sense.

She approaches the next subject gently, but directly.

"I've not asked for your forgiveness, Clarke."

 _Because it is not attainable. Because it does not fit in my hands._

"Good. Because you're not getting it."

Clarke removes her jacket, lays it over Lexa's on the chair.

"I don't understand why you choose to –"

"I need you to stop talking," Clarke interrupts, fixing Lexa with a hard and unreadable stare.

Lexa is unnerved and she stiffens as Clarke moves forward to close the few feet of distance between them. Their faces are nearly as close as they were when Clarke botched her attempt to slit Lexa's throat. That feels like a lifetime ago when it was only this morning and Lexa has never had such a difficult time deciphering any labyrinth as unpredictable as Clarke.

"I do not understand you," Lexa confesses evenly.

Clarke lets out one humorless laugh.

"I don't even _know_ me."

She stays where she is, searching Lexa's puzzled face.

"I think I would have been ready now," Clarke admits. "It's hard to say for sure because I'm not the person I was then, but I think I knew her enough to know that I would be ready now."

Lexa has 'I'm sorry' on her tongue again, but she swallows it with the lump in her throat because it doesn't hold any currency for Clarke.

"You say you don't understand me, but I keep coming back to you because you're the only one who possibly can," Clarke says.

Lexa knows it's not meant as a compliment and she doesn't take it as one.

"I know what you're feeling," Lexa begins.

"I know you do. I know you do, Lexa, because you're the one who fucking made me feel this in the first place. From the moment you met me you were obsessed with turning me into you and congratulations, you did it."

"This isn't what I intended. I said you had incredible potential to be a great leader."

"A leader like you? A heartless, mass murdering, coward is a great leader? Because that's what we are."

Lexa breathes in deeply. They've had variations of this tiring argument again and again since Clarke's arrival in Polis.

"I truly don't know what else to say, Clarke."

The malice is Clarke's body language and tone of voice ebbs away and a sadness creeps in instead.

"Then, just, please, don't talk," Clarke murmurs.

Her hands land gently on Lexa's shoulders and begin sliding up either sides of her neck before they venture to the back of her skull and her fingers wrap in Lexa's hair there. Lexa's hands grip the edge of the table she supports herself on and draws in a quick, sharp breath as her eyes close and Clarke's mouth finds her own.

It's a kiss overflowing with grief and Lexa will be a vessel for Clarke's anguish even if it tears her apart.

Lexa feels the wet tracks of Clarke's tears against her own cheeks and coaxes her mouth open as though she can draw the pain from Clarke's lungs and swallow it. When Clarke pulls away, she presses her forehead to Lexa's and breathes while Lexa keeps her eyes closed. Eventually, Clarke's right hand drifts down to press over Lexa's heart and she drops her forehead to Lexa's shoulder.

"You are Heda," Clark murmurs, her lips brushing against Lexa's sensitive neck as she speaks. "But you are human. You are Lexa, too."

"Clarke," Lexa says quietly and Clarke senses it as the warning that it is.

"You think you don't deserve this," she kisses the side of Lexa's neck and circles her arms around her waist to lean heavily into her. "And maybe you don't. I haven't figured that out yet. I don't know if either of us do. But I want it," Clarke's voice breaks. "And I don't know what that says about me."

Lexa turns, catches Clarke's glassy eyes, and slides her hand to the back of her neck to pull her into a gentle, deep kiss that is reminiscent of the one they shared in Lexa's tent all those months ago. Clarke's uncertainties lie in completely different places now than they did then. Lexa pulls back, brushes her nose against Clarke's and kisses her again, shorter this time.

"It says you are human," Lexa whispers.

Clarke's blue t-shirt is pulled over her head and cast somewhere to their right and Lexa's hands grasps Clarke's hips while she lathers her neck with open-mouthed kisses. She briefly returns to Clarke's mouth, applying pressure to her hipbones with her thumbs. When she pulls away, she observes Clarke's kiss-swollen lips with blown pupils that flicker to her eyes for a moment before her mouth begins a journey down Clarke's body.

Clarke tips her head back and groans and Lexa harshly sucks the skin over Clarke's ribs into her mouth like _'look at me'_ , her green eyes glowing, boring into Clarke's when she looks down. She takes time and care kissing down the plane of Clarke's stomach and then she is on her knees, all the while holding steady eye contact as her hands release Clarke's hips and begin running down her legs in circular, kneading motions. When she reaches her ankles, she unbuckles and unlaces the boots on Clarke's feet, slipping her hand back up her respective calf and encouraging the boot and stocking from Clarke's foot. Lexa's palm runs smoothly under the arch of her foot and she rests it on the floor, doing the same to the other. When she is finished she brings her hands to the small of Clarke's back and digs her fingers into the dimples there before she slips her fingertips just beneath the waist of her pants. It's here that Lexa becomes idle, resting her chin on Clarke's bare abdomen right between her hipbones and she stares upward.

Clarke looks like she can't imagine that many people, if anyone, has seen Heda down on her knees with open eyes the way Clarke has seen her twice now. She slides a few fingers under Lexa's jaw and runs them along its hard line, her thumb sweeping over her bottom lip.

"You love me," Clarke murmurs. An observation, not a question.

Lexa's gaze is unrelenting and she says nothing. The open, raw look in her eyes says, _'yes.'_

"I think," Clarke begins, a phantom of a smile on her lips. "We could have been something great if we didn't get so messed up. I think, in some other universe somewhere, we're together. And we're happy and we don't have all of this blood on our hands."

Lexa gently grabs Clarke's hand, dusts light kisses over her knuckles.

"And in this one?"

Clarke shakes her head, biting her lip as she cries.

"In this one I think our story started just to have an end."

Clarke pulls her hand from Lexa's and gathers her shirt and jacket, redresses and heads for door. All the while Lexa watches her from her knees, defeated and deflated and, truthfully, a bit dumbfounded.

"Get some sleep, Lexa."

And then she is gone.

* * *

By the next day it feels as though Lexa's kneecaps have been knocked in and she stands a notch shorter. The betrayal of a coalition she scraped up the spare parts for and built a living, breathing, functional alliance from is felt deeply and anger burns inside of her in a way that can only be drowned if she fights it out of her.

Lexa's battle with Roan is won by a skim margin.

As foolish as it is, she experiences an uncontrolled moment or two in which she prioritizes a reckless degree of showing off. Goes as far as catching Roan's blade with her bare open palm and triumphantly grits her teeth against the pain. She can't help it, knowing Clarke is there watching rigidly in the crowd, and when her arrogance results in a heavy gash that cleaves a bloody valley between her neck and left shoulder, she reels in her ego and desire to impress Clark. She hears Indra's earlier plead echo in her mind and she locks eyes with Clarke when she recovers to her knees from Roan's harsh blow.

When Lexa decides the game is over, she wills it so, and Roan falls at her feet just as she defiantly raises her chin to Queen Nia. Blood weeps from his middle in red rather than the black that flows down her own face and she wants Nia to watch him bleed out, wants her to witness the light leave the eyes of someone she loves, but she'll never be granted that mercy because there's no one that Nia loves who Lexa can take away. Roan will live and she will take the only life she wants.

 _Jus drein jus daun._

The spear in her fist punctures the Queen's gut from afar and when she slumps forward in her seat Lexa wants to keep killing her even though she is already dead because while she needed the outcome of this battle to be what it is – there could truthfully be no other if there were to be any hope – her fresh corpse brings her no peace and she wants to kill her again and again and again until she cannot remember Costia's name.

One look at Clarke who looks ready to burst through the crowd has Lexa recovering from the mad frenzy of her fury and she remembers she has been salvaging every shred of her humanity that remains inside her so that she can prove she is not a monster.

Her human heart beats, strong and hard in her chest, as she raises her fist above her head and she hears the triumphant cries of her people nearly as loud as the blood rushing in her ears.

* * *

She is escorted by two of her warriors to an alcove and doesn't allow their aid in walking until she is hidden behind the walls and nearly collapses on the two flights of stairs that lead up to a secluded room where Nyko is to meet her with the means to heal and bandage her. It's a simply constructed room with a stiff looking cot, a few wooden stools, shelves lined with ailments and books. Near the dueling ring, its exact purpose is being fulfilled in patching up the wounded victor of the battle.

Her two burly warriors help her to the bed and sit her down on it carefully.

"Nyko is on his way, Heda," one says and she nods stiffly, gingerly curling her bloodied hand over her throbbing ribs.

They leave her to stand guard on the opposite side of the door. Such is their protocol to respectfully protect, but not witness a commander while she is incapacitated.

She stubbornly begins the process of removing her light armor herself, clenching her teeth tightly against the pain that ebbs powerfully from her split shoulder. She gets as far as baring her upper half save for her chest bindings before she has to stop and breathe.

There are low murmurs that she doesn't fully recognize in her hazy, wounded state, but a bit of it sounds argumentative until a deeper, louder voice seemingly ends the disagreement and the wooden side door opens. Lexa is sitting on the cot, her elbows balanced on her parted knees, the arm of her uninjured shoulder wrapped around her ribcage and panting out of sheer pain when Clarke steps into the room with a deep frown drawn on her face.

"Clarke," she exhales. Shame burns hotly beneath her skin at being seen this way. "What are you doing here? Where is Nyko?"

"He's outside if we need him. I'm here to help you," Clarke replies, stepping closer to Lexa and kneeling down to unbuckle her heavy boots that shackle her weary feet. "I'm a healer, too, you know."

"So you are," Lexa accepts quietly.

"Can you stand?" Clarke asks, getting to her feet herself. "I need to get all of this metal and ridiculous amount of buckles and belts and clasps off of you."

Lexa is cooperative while Clarke undresses the rest of her and she can't decide which hurts her pride more – that Clarke is seeing her body like this for the first time, in all of its battered and weakened glory, or that she is bothered about it in the first place.

"I don't know about your culture, but in mine this is a very clinical exchange," Clarke murmurs, eyes focused on the open wounds and bruises that blush in deep purples and blacks all over her skin. She runs a cloth over Lexa's cheek, beneath her lip, down her neck, all over her body to clean the smears of blood and get a more accurate look. Once she seems to be done assessing the damage, she immediately focuses her attention on cleaning out the gash that's pried open like a bloodied scream frozen in time on Lexa's shoulder. "It's nothing intimate or important, the time spent between a doctor and a patient."

Lexa isn't quite sure what Clarke is getting at, but it hurts either way.

"My people have very carefully chosen healers that are deeply trusted to care for the wounds of our warriors," Lexa challenges. "It is not 'clinical' as you say of yours, but it's not intimate in the practical way, it is a spiritual moment between healer and warrior."

Clarke hums and Lexa bites her tongue to quiet the hiss of pain that almost escapes her as Clarke works the blood and dirt out of her wound.

"If you are trying to tell me that there's no deeper meaning to you volunteering to tend my wounds yourself, then your message has been received," Lexa continues lowly.

Clarke doesn't answer that and soon she's finished sterilizing Lexa's shoulder as much as she can, opting next for threading a needle to sew the edges back as they were.

"This is going to hurt," Clarke warns and Lexa doesn't have enough time to launch a sharp quip back at her about the implications of hurt before the puncture of the needle through her flesh quiets her and Clarke deftly begins the process of stitching the wound.

It's silent for a bit and Clarke is reaching the end of the gash when she says, "You got cocky out there."

"I won, didn't I?"

Clark scoffs.

"Yeah, and look at you. Half beaten to death and bleeding. I'm sure your ribs are broken, too."

"I'm fine."

"You made me nervous," Clarke says quietly. "You scared me. I nearly watched you die right in front of me and that scared me… and then it made me angry," she pulls through the last stitch and ties off the thread, biting it to separate it from the spool. She sits up to face Lexa, gently grasps her chin, and continues, "And then I didn't know anything other than I needed to be near you even if it made me hate myself all the more for it."

Lexa bristles, breath caught in her lungs.

"Hate me," Lexa whispers, a little more desperately than she would have liked. "Hate me for what I've made you do, but don't hate yourself for decisions you didn't have a real choice in making."

"I certainly have a choice right now," Clarke responds with no effort to conceal the self-loathing in her tone, touching Lexa's bottom lip. "And yet here I am."

"I have no room to ask for your forgiveness, Clarke," Lexa says and she hears Clarke quietly scoff. "I have no right to ask it of you and I have no expectations set for you. I will simply ask for it because while I don't deserve it, I want nothing else."

Clarke releases Lexa's chin.

"You have to be around in order for me to give that to you, you have to be alive. Stick around long enough and don't get your ass handed to you by rogue princes if you want my forgiveness."

Lexa releases her breath.

* * *

While they were able to work together cohesively to eliminate Nia, Clarke's battle within herself pushes and pulls her from Lexa at the most inconsistent times. Lexa's tethered to every hopeful lilt or hint of an action that could lead in a progressive direction because she firmly believes from the very foundation of her bones that Clarke is a not a chapter she started just to finish. She's got a heavy amount of pressure crushing her with attempting to slip Roan into the role of king. She has to place a trust within him that she doesn't possess - without that fundamental piece, none of her other plans matter. She is in a constant danger. She tortures herself with overthinking and the only respite she finds is when her mind wanders back to Clarke and the thin strands of hope she clings desperately to.

Since the duel, Clarke tends to her wounds three times a day. Their conversations are stilted much of the time and Lexa says even littler than usual to apprehend any arguments that might be kindled between them. It's enough for her to enjoy the silent companionship of Clarke's presence and the relief her gentle hands bring to Lexa's wounds.

Clarke's situating herself on a stool opposite of her when Lexa decides to begin a potentially explosive conversation.

"I heard there was," Lexa looks away a bit obviously, unable to meet Clarke's eyes. "Someone who kept you company during your time away."

"That's bold of you, _Heda_ ," Clarke notes, peeling back the soiled bandage on Lexa's shoulder and gently massaging a warm cloth to clean the grime away. It's been four days since Lexa's duel with Roan and while she is healing, she is a stubborn patient. The stitches have had to be redone twice (and certainly not just so that Clarke would have to spend extra time reapplying them). "Word gets around, doesn't it?"

"Rumors travel far and swiftly by way of mouth," Lexa answers, intentionally choosing an ambiguous word to title the stories she'd heard, as though it would will them so.

"Apparently," Clarke mutters. "And the great Commander has no bigger threats to worry about than rumors about the Sky Princess? I remember a coup happening less than a week ago."

"The Commander does," Lexa defends. And then, "So it's true, then?" she reverts, and her spine goes rigid at her own direct question that she knows lays her out pathetically at Clarke's feet and mercy.

"Yeah, it's true. I spent time with Niylah. Slept with her, actually."

Niylah.

Lexa doesn't even let herself taste it, the sound is bitter enough to repulse her.

She inhales, her nostrils flaring once before she reminds herself – Clarke is her own. It makes no difference who she has been with in any manner of intimacy – they had no monogamous ties to one another. She is above petty jealousy.

"I see."

"That bothers you," Clarke observes.

Lexa tips her chin up. Looks Clarke directly in the eyes.

"It does not bother me. You are free to do as you please, Clarke. You've no cause to practice any reservations on anyone's behalf."

"You're right, I don't," Clarke agrees swiftly. "But it still bothers you."

"It _doesn't_ bother me."

"It's okay that it does," Clarke assures her. "It's your right to have feelings, Lexa, and you are allowed to let yourself actually feel them for once." She wraps a clean bandage under Lexa's arm and over her shoulder. Next, she cleans the shallower wound that's begun to scab over on Lexa's palm. Momentarily, Clarke holds Lexa's hand in her own, thumbs her battered and knotted knuckles.

Lexa's tongue is dry and limp and useless in her mouth. Her green eyes gaze intensely into Clarke's and flicker down to their joined hands. Her heart thumps wildly in her chest like it's going to snap free from its reigns and leave her body. She doesn't notice she isn't breathing until her lungs are tight with the need for air and she inhales a breath through her mouth that shakes her. She can't think and she has no knowledge of how much time has passed in silence between them until Clarke speaks again.

"It's okay to feel," she repeats. "You can't help your emotions and no, that doesn't make you weak. You can help what you do with them, how you handle them," she touches a hand to Lexa's cheek and her eyes actually flutter in response. "You can want things. You, Lexa. Not the Commander."

"I want you," Lexa says so quietly, it's barely spoken aloud. "I want you and it does bother me."

"Okay," Clarke says simply. She nods, licks her chapped lips once and presses her forehead to Lexa's. "Okay," she repeats.

It's not forgiveness. It's no promise and it's no guarantee of, really, anything. It's acceptance. Acceptance of the unforgiving elements that have carved them into who they are. Acceptance and assurance of the pages they had yet to fill, however uncertain of the content.

"If our story ends, it's not here," Lexa whispers.

Clarke pulls back and eyes the bandages that wrap Lexa's vulnerable, bruised body and under her gaze Lexa is reminded, as she often is, how temporary a life is.

"No," Clarke shakes her head. "Not yet."


End file.
